A United States legislator has introduced a piece of legislation to an influential committee of the American Congress calling for an aid cut to Uganda and other countries deemed to be persecuting people “on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or religious belief.”
Congressman Barney Frank, who introduced the amendment in the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday the amendment received unanimous backing from the legislators “although most votes in the committee have broken along party lines.”
Highlighting Uganda as one of the countries where the persecution of gays is high, Mr Frank said the committee now urges the Treasury to advocate that governments receiving assistance from the multilateral development institutions do not engage in gross violations of human rights.
“What we have seen in recent years is a pattern of gross violation of human rights in some countries–extreme physical persecution and even execution,” said Congressman Frank.
“In Uganda for example, which was the major beneficiary of our Heavily Indebted Poor Countries debt initiative, there has been physical persecution of people who are sexual minorities,” he added.
Anti-homesexuality Bill
Mr Frank said the US has a fairly influential voice in the development area and should not be supportive of providing multilateral bank development funds to countries which engage in the physical persecution of people because of their religious beliefs, sexual orientation or gender identity,” he added.
The statement says Congressman Frank’s amendment will now be included in the language of House Financial Services Committee Bill, which outlines budget priorities for issues under its jurisdiction.
The US, which is one of the leading donors to Uganda, has been very vocal about what its officials describe as persecution of ordinary Ugandans because of their sexual orientation since legislator David Bahati tabled an anti-homosexuality Bill before Parliament in October 2009.
This is the first time a US official is formally proposing an aid cut premised on the alleged persecution of gays.
The aid cut would heavily affect Uganda, which receives substantial amounts in public and project support, though the country’s donor funding to the budget has reduced from more than 70 per cent in the early 1990s to less than 30 per cent in the current budget.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Buturo takes parting shot at homosexuals : Push for its Passing
Compelled by a decision of the Constitutional Court and having received instructions from the Office of the Prime Minister, Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo yesterday stepped down from office, a post he has held since June 2006 when he replaced Miria Matembe.
But in the five years Dr Buturo has held the docket, he has been labelled “controversial” by a cross section of the public, often due to his scratchy fight over ethics in the country, but at times, because of the controversies in which his ministry, or Buturo the person, was allegedly caught in.
Yet even as he left office, Dr Buturo took a parting shot at the gays and lesbian community in Uganda, urging Ugandans to support government to ensure the anti-homsexuality Bill is passed.
“I urge you to put pressure on Parliament to debate, amend the anti- homosexual Bill and pass a law that will serve the interest of Ugandans and not our friends,” Dr Buturo said.
‘Advise from above’
Others say Dr Buturo took this decision after being advised by ‘higher authorities’ to do so to avoid a ‘public humiliation’ from the ‘appointing authority’. More resignations are expected, they add.
“He resigned from what?” a very senior government official asked this newspaper last evening, adding that Dr Buturo knew his fate well in advance. He, however, refused to further comment about him as a former colleague. “I do not want to be among the commentators on Buturo,” he added.
A few months after his appointment as Ethics minister, Parliament in October 2006 ordered Dr Buturo to pay back Shs20 million he received from Mega FM, a local radio station in Gulu. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told he had received the money while he was Information Minister. Dr Buturo, who put up a spirited defence against the allegations, eventually bowed to public pressure and paid the money in installments.
The outgoing MP for Bufumbira County East in Kisoro District, Dr Buturo recently lost his bid to return to Parliament as an independent candidate. He had lost the party ticket for his constituency in the NRM primaries.
Dr Buturo last year attributed his NRM primaries loss to ‘robbery from within’ his party, necessitating him to stand as an independent although others say he never delivered sufficiently to his electorate during his tenure. “My decision to run as an independent is not because I was disgruntled. I simply wanted to make a statement that immorality/wickedness should never be allowed to pay. I realised that if I had accepted the fraud, it would be allowing wickedness as a means to promotion and acquisition of whatever one may want in life in our nation,” Dr Buturo said in an interview with another daily newspaper, adding that his party president had shown what he called a “positive attitude to his candidature at the time”.
“His resignation means nothing,” former Ethics minister Miria Matembe told Daily Monitor. “He should have resigned immediately after being robbed by his corrupt colleagues in the NRM primaries,” she added.
Ms Matembe said although she thinks Dr Buturo may have genuinely wanted to fight corruption, he never clearly declared his stand on the vice.
“The Ethics ministry is no longer relevant to the NRM government,” Ms Matembe said. “While I was Ethics minister I did not hesitate to come out openly to condemn corrupt people and institutions. Yet I never clearly heard his stand on corruption.”
She added: “He never openly condemned his fellow ministers who were implicated in corruption scandals. He played it safe, taking political responsibility for collective corruption that thrives in that government. Corruption is the engine that drives the NRM. You only get persecuted when you fall out with government. Buturo facilitated it.”
Notwithstanding his alleged failure to deal with corruption within government, Dr Buturo will be remembered for his fire-fighting stance against what he chose to call a “perverted Ugandan society and an irresponsible media”. He often got in head-on battles with the Red Pepper, a tabloid, which to him published photographs of pornographic nature.
Dr Buturo had no kind words for the tabloid although, as fate would have it, his office shared the same floor and is directly opposite the tabloid’s sales and marketing office on Social Security House in Kampala.
The man who once wrote: “Uganda’s media and the entertainment industry should treat immorality as a subject that deserves our total rejection”, even advocated the publication of names and pictures of people who engage in prostitution as a way of deterring others from engaging in the vice. Fresh in the minds of many, however, is his contribution to the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
But in the five years Dr Buturo has held the docket, he has been labelled “controversial” by a cross section of the public, often due to his scratchy fight over ethics in the country, but at times, because of the controversies in which his ministry, or Buturo the person, was allegedly caught in.
Yet even as he left office, Dr Buturo took a parting shot at the gays and lesbian community in Uganda, urging Ugandans to support government to ensure the anti-homsexuality Bill is passed.
“I urge you to put pressure on Parliament to debate, amend the anti- homosexual Bill and pass a law that will serve the interest of Ugandans and not our friends,” Dr Buturo said.
‘Advise from above’
Others say Dr Buturo took this decision after being advised by ‘higher authorities’ to do so to avoid a ‘public humiliation’ from the ‘appointing authority’. More resignations are expected, they add.
“He resigned from what?” a very senior government official asked this newspaper last evening, adding that Dr Buturo knew his fate well in advance. He, however, refused to further comment about him as a former colleague. “I do not want to be among the commentators on Buturo,” he added.
A few months after his appointment as Ethics minister, Parliament in October 2006 ordered Dr Buturo to pay back Shs20 million he received from Mega FM, a local radio station in Gulu. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told he had received the money while he was Information Minister. Dr Buturo, who put up a spirited defence against the allegations, eventually bowed to public pressure and paid the money in installments.
The outgoing MP for Bufumbira County East in Kisoro District, Dr Buturo recently lost his bid to return to Parliament as an independent candidate. He had lost the party ticket for his constituency in the NRM primaries.
Dr Buturo last year attributed his NRM primaries loss to ‘robbery from within’ his party, necessitating him to stand as an independent although others say he never delivered sufficiently to his electorate during his tenure. “My decision to run as an independent is not because I was disgruntled. I simply wanted to make a statement that immorality/wickedness should never be allowed to pay. I realised that if I had accepted the fraud, it would be allowing wickedness as a means to promotion and acquisition of whatever one may want in life in our nation,” Dr Buturo said in an interview with another daily newspaper, adding that his party president had shown what he called a “positive attitude to his candidature at the time”.
“His resignation means nothing,” former Ethics minister Miria Matembe told Daily Monitor. “He should have resigned immediately after being robbed by his corrupt colleagues in the NRM primaries,” she added.
Ms Matembe said although she thinks Dr Buturo may have genuinely wanted to fight corruption, he never clearly declared his stand on the vice.
“The Ethics ministry is no longer relevant to the NRM government,” Ms Matembe said. “While I was Ethics minister I did not hesitate to come out openly to condemn corrupt people and institutions. Yet I never clearly heard his stand on corruption.”
She added: “He never openly condemned his fellow ministers who were implicated in corruption scandals. He played it safe, taking political responsibility for collective corruption that thrives in that government. Corruption is the engine that drives the NRM. You only get persecuted when you fall out with government. Buturo facilitated it.”
Notwithstanding his alleged failure to deal with corruption within government, Dr Buturo will be remembered for his fire-fighting stance against what he chose to call a “perverted Ugandan society and an irresponsible media”. He often got in head-on battles with the Red Pepper, a tabloid, which to him published photographs of pornographic nature.
Dr Buturo had no kind words for the tabloid although, as fate would have it, his office shared the same floor and is directly opposite the tabloid’s sales and marketing office on Social Security House in Kampala.
The man who once wrote: “Uganda’s media and the entertainment industry should treat immorality as a subject that deserves our total rejection”, even advocated the publication of names and pictures of people who engage in prostitution as a way of deterring others from engaging in the vice. Fresh in the minds of many, however, is his contribution to the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Dr Buturo told the international community that Uganda would never give equal rights to gays and lesbians nor has plans to legalise homosexuality. The Bill brought Uganda on the spotlight since some of its provisions demanded the death penalty.
But in the five years Dr Buturo has held the docket, he has been labelled “controversial” by a cross section of the public, often due to his scratchy fight over ethics in the country, but at times, because of the controversies in which his ministry, or Buturo the person, was allegedly caught in.
Yet even as he left office, Dr Buturo took a parting shot at the gays and lesbian community in Uganda, urging Ugandans to support government to ensure the anti-homsexuality Bill is passed.
“I urge you to put pressure on Parliament to debate, amend the anti- homosexual Bill and pass a law that will serve the interest of Ugandans and not our friends,” Dr Buturo said.
‘Advise from above’
Others say Dr Buturo took this decision after being advised by ‘higher authorities’ to do so to avoid a ‘public humiliation’ from the ‘appointing authority’. More resignations are expected, they add.
“He resigned from what?” a very senior government official asked this newspaper last evening, adding that Dr Buturo knew his fate well in advance. He, however, refused to further comment about him as a former colleague. “I do not want to be among the commentators on Buturo,” he added.
A few months after his appointment as Ethics minister, Parliament in October 2006 ordered Dr Buturo to pay back Shs20 million he received from Mega FM, a local radio station in Gulu. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told he had received the money while he was Information Minister. Dr Buturo, who put up a spirited defence against the allegations, eventually bowed to public pressure and paid the money in installments.
The outgoing MP for Bufumbira County East in Kisoro District, Dr Buturo recently lost his bid to return to Parliament as an independent candidate. He had lost the party ticket for his constituency in the NRM primaries.
Dr Buturo last year attributed his NRM primaries loss to ‘robbery from within’ his party, necessitating him to stand as an independent although others say he never delivered sufficiently to his electorate during his tenure. “My decision to run as an independent is not because I was disgruntled. I simply wanted to make a statement that immorality/wickedness should never be allowed to pay. I realised that if I had accepted the fraud, it would be allowing wickedness as a means to promotion and acquisition of whatever one may want in life in our nation,” Dr Buturo said in an interview with another daily newspaper, adding that his party president had shown what he called a “positive attitude to his candidature at the time”.
“His resignation means nothing,” former Ethics minister Miria Matembe told Daily Monitor. “He should have resigned immediately after being robbed by his corrupt colleagues in the NRM primaries,” she added.
Ms Matembe said although she thinks Dr Buturo may have genuinely wanted to fight corruption, he never clearly declared his stand on the vice.
“The Ethics ministry is no longer relevant to the NRM government,” Ms Matembe said. “While I was Ethics minister I did not hesitate to come out openly to condemn corrupt people and institutions. Yet I never clearly heard his stand on corruption.”
She added: “He never openly condemned his fellow ministers who were implicated in corruption scandals. He played it safe, taking political responsibility for collective corruption that thrives in that government. Corruption is the engine that drives the NRM. You only get persecuted when you fall out with government. Buturo facilitated it.”
Notwithstanding his alleged failure to deal with corruption within government, Dr Buturo will be remembered for his fire-fighting stance against what he chose to call a “perverted Ugandan society and an irresponsible media”. He often got in head-on battles with the Red Pepper, a tabloid, which to him published photographs of pornographic nature.
Dr Buturo had no kind words for the tabloid although, as fate would have it, his office shared the same floor and is directly opposite the tabloid’s sales and marketing office on Social Security House in Kampala.
The man who once wrote: “Uganda’s media and the entertainment industry should treat immorality as a subject that deserves our total rejection”, even advocated the publication of names and pictures of people who engage in prostitution as a way of deterring others from engaging in the vice. Fresh in the minds of many, however, is his contribution to the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
But in the five years Dr Buturo has held the docket, he has been labelled “controversial” by a cross section of the public, often due to his scratchy fight over ethics in the country, but at times, because of the controversies in which his ministry, or Buturo the person, was allegedly caught in.
Yet even as he left office, Dr Buturo took a parting shot at the gays and lesbian community in Uganda, urging Ugandans to support government to ensure the anti-homsexuality Bill is passed.
“I urge you to put pressure on Parliament to debate, amend the anti- homosexual Bill and pass a law that will serve the interest of Ugandans and not our friends,” Dr Buturo said.
‘Advise from above’
Others say Dr Buturo took this decision after being advised by ‘higher authorities’ to do so to avoid a ‘public humiliation’ from the ‘appointing authority’. More resignations are expected, they add.
“He resigned from what?” a very senior government official asked this newspaper last evening, adding that Dr Buturo knew his fate well in advance. He, however, refused to further comment about him as a former colleague. “I do not want to be among the commentators on Buturo,” he added.
A few months after his appointment as Ethics minister, Parliament in October 2006 ordered Dr Buturo to pay back Shs20 million he received from Mega FM, a local radio station in Gulu. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told he had received the money while he was Information Minister. Dr Buturo, who put up a spirited defence against the allegations, eventually bowed to public pressure and paid the money in installments.
The outgoing MP for Bufumbira County East in Kisoro District, Dr Buturo recently lost his bid to return to Parliament as an independent candidate. He had lost the party ticket for his constituency in the NRM primaries.
Dr Buturo last year attributed his NRM primaries loss to ‘robbery from within’ his party, necessitating him to stand as an independent although others say he never delivered sufficiently to his electorate during his tenure. “My decision to run as an independent is not because I was disgruntled. I simply wanted to make a statement that immorality/wickedness should never be allowed to pay. I realised that if I had accepted the fraud, it would be allowing wickedness as a means to promotion and acquisition of whatever one may want in life in our nation,” Dr Buturo said in an interview with another daily newspaper, adding that his party president had shown what he called a “positive attitude to his candidature at the time”.
“His resignation means nothing,” former Ethics minister Miria Matembe told Daily Monitor. “He should have resigned immediately after being robbed by his corrupt colleagues in the NRM primaries,” she added.
Ms Matembe said although she thinks Dr Buturo may have genuinely wanted to fight corruption, he never clearly declared his stand on the vice.
“The Ethics ministry is no longer relevant to the NRM government,” Ms Matembe said. “While I was Ethics minister I did not hesitate to come out openly to condemn corrupt people and institutions. Yet I never clearly heard his stand on corruption.”
She added: “He never openly condemned his fellow ministers who were implicated in corruption scandals. He played it safe, taking political responsibility for collective corruption that thrives in that government. Corruption is the engine that drives the NRM. You only get persecuted when you fall out with government. Buturo facilitated it.”
Notwithstanding his alleged failure to deal with corruption within government, Dr Buturo will be remembered for his fire-fighting stance against what he chose to call a “perverted Ugandan society and an irresponsible media”. He often got in head-on battles with the Red Pepper, a tabloid, which to him published photographs of pornographic nature.
Dr Buturo had no kind words for the tabloid although, as fate would have it, his office shared the same floor and is directly opposite the tabloid’s sales and marketing office on Social Security House in Kampala.
The man who once wrote: “Uganda’s media and the entertainment industry should treat immorality as a subject that deserves our total rejection”, even advocated the publication of names and pictures of people who engage in prostitution as a way of deterring others from engaging in the vice. Fresh in the minds of many, however, is his contribution to the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Dr Buturo told the international community that Uganda would never give equal rights to gays and lesbians nor has plans to legalise homosexuality. The Bill brought Uganda on the spotlight since some of its provisions demanded the death penalty.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Do gays have power to bring down a politician?
Mr. Buturo: Will he stop vilifying gays to win back his constituency in 2016
By Robert Atuhairwe
Mr. Buturo: Will he stop vilifying gays to win back his constituency in 2016
By Robert Atuhairwe
A Ugandan politician claims gays and lesbians caused his loss at the polls in General Elections held on February 18, this year.
Hon. James Nsaba Buturo has been a Minister of Ethics and Integrity resigned this week in the capital, Kampala after being caught in web of losing elections in Bufumbira East, crossing from his party (NRM) to the independent ticket and a Government plan to sack him and other ministers like him.
Buturo has been MP for his constituency since 2001. In the last election in 2006, he was unopposed. For all his misfortunes which have now brought him down to an ordinary MP who will soon be a private citizen come May, 12, the PHD holder blames his woes on gays. He says gays supported his opponent to defeat him.
Of course every loser in a contest can blame even the flimsiest of factors but Buturo is serious on what he is saying. He has been a leading crusader against gays in line with his Ministry’s docket.
Actually, the NRM party to which he belonged was behind the world-rattling Anti-Homosexual Bill that was almost passed into law by Uganda’s Parliament last year if it were not for worldwide condemnation. Fellow NRM legislator, David Bahati, tabled the Bill. The intended law prescribed the death penalty in some of its clauses.
Now this is where Buturo’s predicament gets more puzzling. As a Minister, he was simply acting as a government representative to manage the morals of Ugandans. He targeted not only gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals but also prostitutes, drunkards, the corrupt and thousands, perhaps millions, of other “immoral” people.
How interesting that of all the foregoing groups, it is the gays and lesbians that descended on him in Bufumbira East, decampaigned him and funded his opponent! As far as I know, many MPs on the NRM side and even on the opposition side supported the Bill. Many of them got re-elected and likewise, many of them lost.
Have the other losers feared to speak out on their cause of election misery or is Buturo simply crying foul using a weak excuse? Perhaps we should say the gays also campaigned for some MPs.
If that were the case, Hon. Bahati would have been the first casualty of the gays’ political prowess. They would have pumped billions into his constituency to crush him and pitched camp there. However, Bahati won a clean victory at the NRM primaries and was unopposed at last.
May be Hon. Buturo needs to take time and read the political trends in Bufumbira East. Is it a gay-dominated area? May be Bahati needs to educate the world on how to hate and fight gays but still win an election.
If the gay movement indeed has the power to bring down a politician in Uganda where the practice is said to be as alien as the extraterrestrials, then its membership figures have been grossly underestimated. Since no census has ever carried out to establish who is gay and who is not, may be the majority are. That being the case, governments (even elsewhere) need to beware what laws they enact as the gays will soon overpower them if they continue being fatally threatened.
I am only basing my assumption on the hope that Buturo’s case is genuine.
By Robert Atuhairwe
Mr. Buturo: Will he stop vilifying gays to win back his constituency in 2016
By Robert Atuhairwe
A Ugandan politician claims gays and lesbians caused his loss at the polls in General Elections held on February 18, this year.
Hon. James Nsaba Buturo has been a Minister of Ethics and Integrity resigned this week in the capital, Kampala after being caught in web of losing elections in Bufumbira East, crossing from his party (NRM) to the independent ticket and a Government plan to sack him and other ministers like him.
Buturo has been MP for his constituency since 2001. In the last election in 2006, he was unopposed. For all his misfortunes which have now brought him down to an ordinary MP who will soon be a private citizen come May, 12, the PHD holder blames his woes on gays. He says gays supported his opponent to defeat him.
Of course every loser in a contest can blame even the flimsiest of factors but Buturo is serious on what he is saying. He has been a leading crusader against gays in line with his Ministry’s docket.
Actually, the NRM party to which he belonged was behind the world-rattling Anti-Homosexual Bill that was almost passed into law by Uganda’s Parliament last year if it were not for worldwide condemnation. Fellow NRM legislator, David Bahati, tabled the Bill. The intended law prescribed the death penalty in some of its clauses.
Now this is where Buturo’s predicament gets more puzzling. As a Minister, he was simply acting as a government representative to manage the morals of Ugandans. He targeted not only gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals but also prostitutes, drunkards, the corrupt and thousands, perhaps millions, of other “immoral” people.
How interesting that of all the foregoing groups, it is the gays and lesbians that descended on him in Bufumbira East, decampaigned him and funded his opponent! As far as I know, many MPs on the NRM side and even on the opposition side supported the Bill. Many of them got re-elected and likewise, many of them lost.
Have the other losers feared to speak out on their cause of election misery or is Buturo simply crying foul using a weak excuse? Perhaps we should say the gays also campaigned for some MPs.
If that were the case, Hon. Bahati would have been the first casualty of the gays’ political prowess. They would have pumped billions into his constituency to crush him and pitched camp there. However, Bahati won a clean victory at the NRM primaries and was unopposed at last.
May be Hon. Buturo needs to take time and read the political trends in Bufumbira East. Is it a gay-dominated area? May be Bahati needs to educate the world on how to hate and fight gays but still win an election.
If the gay movement indeed has the power to bring down a politician in Uganda where the practice is said to be as alien as the extraterrestrials, then its membership figures have been grossly underestimated. Since no census has ever carried out to establish who is gay and who is not, may be the majority are. That being the case, governments (even elsewhere) need to beware what laws they enact as the gays will soon overpower them if they continue being fatally threatened.
I am only basing my assumption on the hope that Buturo’s case is genuine.
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